UK
Ten further Orthodox Jewish charities named by regulator investigating cashed cheques worth £22m
Nursery, girls’ school and food poverty charity under investigation
September 1, 2025 15:10
Nursery, girls’ school and food poverty charity under investigation
September 1, 2025 15:10The charity regulator has extended an investigation into cashed cheques totalling more than £20 million to include a further 10 Orthodox Jewish charities, bringing the total number of Charedi charities under scrutiny to at least 18.
Following an unannounced visit by HMRC to a company in Hackney, 105 charities were found to have issued and cashed cheques with it to a value of £22 million between December 2021 and March 2023.
In May this year, the Charity Commission opened a class inquiry into the charities it believed had issued cheques that were then exchanged for cash and at the time released details of the first 10 charities it was looking into, of which at least eight are Jewish.
The regulator has now published a list of a further 10 charities under investigation. They include a children’s nursery, a girls’ school, a religious education charity, and a charitable trust that provides grants to families living in poverty.
Among the charities named by the regulator are Ezer Viznitz Foundation, which provides aid to struggling families; Satmar Nursery Trust; Lehachyos, which helps to distribute food to people in need in Israel; Dover Sholem Community Trust, which promotes Orthodox Jewish religious education and assists with food poverty in the community; and Friends of Yeshiva Daas Sholem Shotz, another group dedicated to the advancement of Orthodox Jewish religious education.
Also listed are the Vyoel Moshe Charitable Trust; food poverty charity the ZSV Trust; United Talmudical Associates, another charity intended to promote Orthodox Judaism; grant-making organisation Forty Limited; and Bnois Jerusalem Schools, which operates Bnois Jerusalem Girls School in Stamford Hill.
The Charity Commission has issued an immediate order to temporarily stop any of the charities under inquiry from issuing cheques without its prior consent.
Its inquiry will aim to determine how the charities have transferred funds, how trustees had oversight of what happened to funds exchanged for the cheques and if this cash has been used properly to support what the charities were set up to do.
The Commission will also seek to establish how trustees determined that these financial transactions were in their charity’s best interests.
Of the 10 charities previously named by the Commission, three donate to private Orthodox schools.
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.